$850 Smartview HD 17" 1080p with HD-SDI monitor - works with Epic + Scarlet

[Jacek Zakowicz]

Specs at BMD's website:

SmartView Duo (800x480/8") - Color Depth 16.7 million colors
SmartView HD (1920x1080/17.3") - Color Depth 262,144 colors

A bit disappointing, wouldn't you say?

Seriously?!!
6 bit color?
I did not know anybody made these anymore...
Pixel vision comes to mind

 

[Tonaci Tran]

I guess compromises in panel quality had to be made to hit this price point.
Again, I will say I am not dissappointed at all in image quality.

 

[Lee Saxon]

6 bit color?
I did not know anybody made these anymore...

Most panels are 6-bit. All consumer monitors and televisions and prosumer monitors like E-IPS that call themselves 8-bit (6-bit plus a BS rasterizing technology). Including, I believe, the SmallHD DP6 and equivalent TVLogic.

 

[Jacek Zakowicz]

Most modern panels are 8 bit. Small panels like the BOE hydis that the small hd, tv logic(?) are using is a 6 bit panel.
So is the original Red 5.6" Toshiba panel.
Very easy to tell:
If the spacs call 262000 colors it's 6 bit
They also used to "cheat" and call 16.2M colors -so called (enhanced) interpolated -6 bit
16.7M colors- 8 bit

 

[Joel Arvidsson]

Cool just did a search on reduser to se if anybody had tried this monitor and bam. A thread from yesterday. Thanks for posting. Will keep my eyes on this thread!

 

[chad vachter]

i love this group .
i saw these monitors , and was shocked at the cheap price.
and there was two plus pages of info here.
thats awesome .

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

Any new c-stands mounts for this one that fits without using a hacksaw?

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

bump...

 

[Ned Wilson]

I know 850 sounds like a great price, but I figure few items have as good a return on investment than monitors, why not pay the extra 1500.00 or so for something that produces a better image as well as has all the on set external controls. I can't imagine using something I need to sync with a lap top on set, especially with commercial clients.

Our FSI 21.5" gets us 200/day. That's amazing. It's paid off several times over. My old Panny BTH 1700 not only paid itself off in a few months, but gave me four years of use and sold for more than half of what I paid for it.

I don't want to take the wings out of the sails here on BMD or Tonaci's new purchase, but I feel that with the one piece of gear the client or director interact with the most, the monitor, I'd want something up to professional standards, in form and function. Trust me, most of them know the difference.

 

[Jon MIchael Puntervold]

I agree that a good monitor is important, but the SmartView HD is absolutely a professional monitor, but made for a different use than i.e. the Panny BTH. That it has no controls and that you can calibrate it against the output of the viewfinder or touchscreen on an Epic without anyone interfering is not necessary a bad thing. And it's full 1080p resolution is a plus, but 6 bit colours is a rather huge minus...

Ned, what do you think is the absolutely best directors monitor currently available?

 

[Mike Yonts]

I got one of these a few weeks ago and am kind of regretting it. I love the thinness and simplicity, and it's plenty sharp. I don't mind plugging it into a laptop to set it up. But it only gives you control over brightness, contrast, and saturation. The hue is pretty far off with no way to adjust it. And it's a strange kind of color problem—some colors look fine and some are really off. I ended up using a cheap flat screen TV from Costco and an SDI to HDMI converter and preferring that as a client monitor.

I'll investigate some more, but so far it's not something I'd want the clients to look at.